After the Royal Palace of Queluz, we visited another palace named Pena Palace. It's situated in Sintra (a wonderful village that I recommend you). A German married to a Portuguese queen made build it. That German was a relative of Ludwig II (the Mad King) and he was inspired in the famous castles of Bavaria to have a replica in Portugal.

In Sintra there is also a house named Quinta de Regaleira. A rich man asked an Italian architect to build it. It seems that the rich man was a mason and he liked esoteric things. So the house and the gardens are full of esoteric details like pits, subterranean grottos and so on. It's amazing!

Un detallito del jardín de la Quinta de Regaleira en Sintra.

Here you can see a detail of the gardens of Quinta de Regaleira in Sintra.

On the third day we went on a daytrip to Mafra, Sobreiro and Ericeira.Mafra monastery is called "the Portuguese Escorial" (- Escorial is a monastery in Spain, near Madrid - ). A king who did not have any children made a promise that he would build a convent there if his wife could give him a child. A baby girl was born, and the king gave orders to build the convent. Then the convent turned into monastery, and a palace was added, although the king and queen almost never lived here. It's really huuuuuuuuuuuuge!

In Sobreiro, a Portuguese man wanted to recreate a typical Portuguese village, and so he built several houses, the school, the blacksmith's house, the shoemaker's house, the bakery, the windmill... and also a part of it was built in miniature. What do you think of this house of my size? Maybe I will rent it for my next holidays :D